"Nearly 13 million people are on the brink of starvation as the worst food crisis in a decade spreads across six countries: Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho." "In Malawi, the men risk their lives to dive for water-lily bulbs in crocodile-infested rivers and kill mice to eat and sell. The women gather wild grasses and boil up weeds to feed their children." 6-02

"The solutions to the African hunger crisis are as complicated as the problems themselves. The challenge for the six countries – Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Swaziland – is not just to get through the immediate food shortage, but to find ways to keep the problem from happening again next year."

"This is not the same old story. There are deep-rooted problems in the region,' says Tim Osborne, Malawi country director of CARE, an Atlanta-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) that helps fight global poverty. 'Various factors have combined to make the populations so vulnerable that they cannot cope with any new crisis. This is an emergency all right – a long-term emergency.' " 11-04